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Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Bacon Honey Mustard Biscuits #FoodieExtravaganza

Super full of bacon with a good hit of sweetness from the honey, these bacon honey mustard biscuits will be a favorite on your breakfast or brunch table.

This month our host for Foodie Extravaganza is Kathleen at Fearlessly Creative Mammas and she has exhorted us to help her celebrate her southern roots by baking buttermilk biscuits. Apparently it's Buttermilk Biscuit Day on May 14th. Who knew? Being from the southern United States myself, I have several biscuit recipes already in my repertoire, like these make ahead biscuits that are frozen and can be baked as you need them which is very handy! I could also have shared my aunt’s made from scratch biscuits, the ones I make most often, but she got the recipe from her mother-in-law and it includes instructions that are hard to quantify, like “add just enough milk.” How much is just enough? Ah, therein lies the secret of Mrs. Davis’ fluffy biscuits.

I was trolling the internet and came across a recipe for maple syrup biscuits with bacon which sounded fabulous. The addition of bacon to any recipe is a good thing. All those from maple syrup producing regions, please cover your eyes for this next admission: At our house, Aunt Jemima Butter Lite syrup is our maple syrup substitute. We love that stuff. It's a bit thin though so I wasn't sure how it would behave in biscuit dough.

You know what also goes with bacon? Honey and mustard – think Christmas ham. Mine always has a honey mustard glaze!

Serve these guys warm and they will be gone in no time.

Ingredients for 12 biscuits
1 pound or 450g streaky bacon, cut into 1/2-inch or 1cm pieces
1 3/4 cups or 220g flour, plus extra for the work surface
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 115g chilled butter
1/3 cup or 80ml honey
2 teaspoons whole grain mustard
1/3-1/2 cup or 80-120ml cold buttermilk – just enough till it hangs together like a doughMethod
Fry your bacon pieces in a large pan until they are nicely browned but not too hard. Drain them on some paper towels. I use some newspaper from the recycling bin and put a piece of clean paper towel on top so the bacon isn’t touching the newsprint. Works like a charm and saves on paper towels.

Sift together your flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl.

Cut the chilled butter into 1/2 in or 1cm cubes. Use a pastry blender to cut them into the flour mixture, until the little butter pieces are tiny and covered in flour.

Add in the bacon and stir to coat the bacon with the flour mixture.

Add in your honey, mustard and about 1/3 cup or 80ml of the buttermilk. Start folding the ingredients together, adding the rest of the buttermilk if it seems too dry.

Flour your clean work surface and scrape the dough out onto it.

Flour your hands liberally and knead the dough two or three turns. Press the dough out till it’s about and 1 in or 2.5cm thick.

Flour your biscuit cutter or a large glass and cut the biscuits out and put them on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment or a silicone liner.

Pop the whole pan into the freezer to chill while you preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

When the oven is preheated, bake the biscuits for 18-22 minutes or until they are nicely browned.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving warm.

My original plan was to brush these with melted butter and honey when they came out of the oven but I can assure you that they don’t need it. They are chock full of bacon and just sweet enough from the honey already inside! They go ever so nicely with a sunny-side-up egg.

Enjoy!

How do you like your biscuits? We've really kicked them up a notch this month!

Foodie Extravaganza celebrates obscure food holidays or shares recipes with the same ingredient or theme every month.

Posting day is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook group Foodie Extravaganza. We would love to have you!

Cooking for people I love, creating deliciousness out of fresh ingredients, browsing through cookbooks for inspiration, perusing grocery shelves for choice items and writing about my expat life enriched by food. That's what I do here.